Death toll in Easter suicide attack in Pakistan passes 70

By Annie Gowenshaiq Hussain and Erin Cunningham, The Washington Post

Published
1:10 pm EDT, Monday, March 28, 2016

Pakistani nuns and members of civil society hold candles during a vigil for victims of the Sunday’s deadly suicide bombing in a park on Monday, March 28, 2016 in Lahore, Pakistan. Pakistan’s prime minister on Monday vowed to eliminate perpetrators of terror attacks such as the massive suicide bombing that targeted Christians gathered for Easter the previous day in the eastern city of Lahore, killing at least 70 people. less

Pakistani nuns and members of civil society hold candles during a vigil for victims of the Sunday’s deadly suicide bombing in a park on Monday, March 28, 2016 in Lahore, Pakistan. Pakistan’s prime ... more

Photo: AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary

Photo: AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary

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Pakistani nuns and members of civil society hold candles during a vigil for victims of the Sunday’s deadly suicide bombing in a park on Monday, March 28, 2016 in Lahore, Pakistan. Pakistan’s prime minister on Monday vowed to eliminate perpetrators of terror attacks such as the massive suicide bombing that targeted Christians gathered for Easter the previous day in the eastern city of Lahore, killing at least 70 people. less

Pakistani nuns and members of civil society hold candles during a vigil for victims of the Sunday’s deadly suicide bombing in a park on Monday, March 28, 2016 in Lahore, Pakistan. Pakistan’s prime ... more

Photo: AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary

Death toll in Easter suicide attack in Pakistan passes 70

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LAHORE, Pakistan >> The death toll in a devastating suicide attack on picnicking families in the city of Lahore rose to 72, with another 230 injured, local media reports said Monday, as Pakistani authorities vowed to hunt down the Islamist militant bombers who claimed they specifically targeted Christians on Easter Sunday.

Security forces arrested a “number of terrorist suspects and facilitators” in at least five separate raids in cities across Punjab province, where Lahore is located, according to an army spokesman. The spokesman, Lt. Gen. Asim Bajwa, also said that “a huge cache of arms and ammunition” was recovered in the operations, but he did not say where the weapons stockpile was found.

Local media outlets, quoting security officials, reported Monday that the government has kicked off a wider operation across the province and that it would include Pakistan’s paramilitary forces.

The blast on Sunday evening ripped through crowds of families celebrating Easter at the city’s largest park, transforming a joyful scene of picnicking families into a spectacle of chaos and horror.

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At the Vatican, Pope Francis on Monday decried the Easter bombing as “vile and abominable” and called for Pakistan’s religious minorities to be protected.

He urged authorities in Pakistan to “make every effort to restore security and serenity” to Pakistanis, according to the Vatican’s website.

Pakistani authorities noted that more Muslims were killed and injured than Christians. Of those who died at the scene, 14 were Christian, 44 were Muslim and nine could not immediately be identified, according to Muhammad Iqbal, the superintendent of police for operations in Lahore.

Iqbal said police were also investigating whether the bomber - who detonated a vest with an estimated 20 pounds of explosives and ball bearings - had an accomplice or a handler at his side.

Meanwhile, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived in Lahore, which is one of his political strongholds, to visit the wounded in one of the city’s many hospitals, the premier’s office said.

“Our goal is not only to eliminate terror infrastructure but also the extremist mindset, which is a threat to our way of life,” Sharif said from Lahore, according to a statement from his office. “We must take this war to the doors of 1/8these3/8 terrorist groups,” he said. “God willing, we will wipe out them out.”

A splinter faction of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat ul-Ahrar, claimed responsibility for the attack, which a spokesman said deliberately targeted Christians in Lahore’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park.

“It was our people who attacked the Christians in Lahore, celebrating Easter,” the spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said. “It’s our message to the government that we will carry out such attacks again until sharia 1/8Islamic law3/8 is imposed in the country.”

On Monday, little remained of the carnage.

Police had cordoned off the blood-stained area between a fountain and a bumper car ride in the small children’s amusement area where the tragedy occurred. Objects were left like small grace notes -- a jeweled sandal, mangled reading glasses, a child’s shoe.

The identification card of the suicide bomber was discovered amid the debris, local media reported. The reports said the bomber was identified as Muhammad Yousaf Farid, born in 1988. Those reports could not immediately be confirmed.

At Jinnah Hospital in Lahore, where more than 150 of the injured were taken Sunday night, 67 remained hospitalized with a variety of injuries, including burns and shrapnel wounds, doctors said. Politicians and TV anchors weaved through the beds, where occupants were labeled “blast victim.”

Among them were two small children, their beds marked with signs saying “unknown,” whose family died in the blast and who had yet to be linked with other relatives.

Some of the victims were still clearly in shock. Zeeshan Taaj, 23, had been walking through the park on his way back from a pickup cricket match when the bomb detonated. He injured his leg in the aftermath and is trying to come to terms with what he saw: “Fire and smoke,” he said “I have seen chopped legs blown off, heads and dead bodies scattered all around me.” A friend tried to comfort him by tucking a sheet around his still bloodied leg wound.

Pakistan, a country of 190 million, has suffered for years from sectarian violence and Islamist militancy, including a Taliban-led insurgency in the tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan. Christians make up only about 1 percent of Pakistan’s population but have maintained a larger presence in Lahore.

In Islamabad on Monday, thousands of Muslim demonstrators protesting the execution of Islamist assassin Mumtaz Qadri staged a sit-in inside the city’s “Red Zone,” which is home to a number of vital government institutions, including parliament and the prime minister’s house.

The army was deployed Sunday night to protect government buildings after the protesters rampaged across the city, damaging property and setting buildings on fire. Mobile phone service was cut in the Red Zone overnight and on Monday morning, residents said.

Mumtaz Qadri, a former police commando, assassinated Punjab’s governor, Saleem Taseer, in 2011 over the latter’s opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. Most blasphemy cases are lodged against non-Muslims for violations such as desecrating the Koran, Islam’s holy book, according to rights monitors.

In Lahore on Sunday, Parveen Masih, a 30-year-old Christian woman, said she had gone to the park with her husband and children to celebrate Easter. They were there when the bomb exploded.

“This attack was about nothing other than to sabotage our happiness,” Masih, who was wounded in the face, said in a telephone interview. “We had only a few days to celebrate, and they didn’t even let us enjoy those.”

The government of Punjab province announced three days of mourning. A statement from the office of Punjab’s chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, who is the prime minister’s brother, pledged that the culprits would be brought to trial.

“Those who targeted innocent citizens do not deserve to be called humans,” Shahbaz Sharif posted on his Twitter account. “We will hunt you down,” he said, and “make sure your terror infrastructure is dismantled completely.”

Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister, met with his security advisers following the attack, and they reached “key decisions” on how to respond, a statement from his office said.

Ehsanullah Ehsan, the Jamaat ul-Ahrar spokesman, declared that the militants would strike again in Punjab. The group broke away from the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban, in 2014, as a result of in-fighting between top commanders, and declared their support for the Islamic State. Jamaat ul-Ahrar rejoined the Taliban in March 2015, but still maintains its own faction within the group.